What Might've Been
by AvocadoPenguin
Summary: Ten years ago I wrote my first fanfiction. This is a retelling of that story-the way it should've been told. "I took a deep breath before I confessed, 'I did it Dallas. I stabbed the Soc. It was me. Johnny is innocent.'"
1. Chapter 1

I guess it doesn't really matter where I was born.

It doesn't matter if it does matter either, because I don't know where I was born. I asked my mom a couple of times but she'd either wave me off or pretend like she hadn't heard me. Or maybe she really didn't hear me. Some days she was too drugged up to really hear or see anything—she just sat the couch looking at the fuzzy TV screen in her own warped world.

Once, while looking for our old camera in a box in the attic labeled _MISC_ in thick permanent marker, I found my baby book underneath a few old files. I didn't even know I had a baby book until that day, but there it was, beat up and discolored. The ponies that decorated it were surely once white, but now they were sickly yellow, and the spine cracked so loud when I opened it that I thought the book would break in half. I thought surely it would say where I was born, but that space had been left mysteriously blank. There was not birth certificate in it either. It was missing.

I wondered if I even had one, or if I was just born on the side of the road in a ditch somewhere.

So, it's doesn't matter where I'm from really, just that when I was four years old I moved here—to Tulsa, Oklahoma. My very first memory is riding in the front seat of my mother's rusted Honda on a pile of phone books that served as a booster seat and passing the green and white sign that said WELCOME TO TULSA. I couldn't read a lick then, nor could I for a long time afterwards, but my mom read it out loud as we crossed the city limits.

She was excited. I could tell from her voice. I had never heard her excited before and I don't reckon I've heard her excited since. I think that's why it stuck to clearly in my mind.

We drove through the outskirts of the city, past the big houses where the big shots lived and through the center, then out the other side to this crummy neighborhood and to the house my stepdad owned. Only, he wasn't my stepdad yet. He wouldn't be for another seven months. But he had met my mother at the diner she worked at, I guess, when he was hauling a load overnight through wherever we lived then. Soon after that, he called her at work and invited us to move in with him. Just like that.

Back then the house wasn't quite as rough as it is now. Now, the porch was kind of crooked because the posts were slowly rotting away and the entire house was sort of melting into the ground unevenly. Even the kitchen and living room tilt, but it's difficult to tell unless you drop a ball or something round, like an orange, and watch it roll quickly to the front of the house. The porch is definitely the worst bit, so I have to be extra careful when sneaking out not to step on a rotten board so it snaps beneath me or groans uneasily.

But when my mom and I moved in ten years ago, the porch was level and the paint wasn't yet chipping off the door and window frames. That was before my stepdad, Clive, lost his job at the trucking company and my mom spent all of his savings on drugs or booze or whatever. That savings was Clive's chance of moving out of this neighborhood and starting a decent life, but that is long gone now. So the three of us were kind of stuck here together, which is hell for all of us because over the last decade we have learned a special sort of hatred for each other.

They especially hate me. On a good day this means that Clive and my mom just sort of pretend that I don't exist, on a bad day…well, I try not to think about those so much.

Today was a good day because Clive wasn't home—he was probably at the bar or with his buddies down at the rodeo—and Mom had locked herself in her room for the day, which was normal after her and Clive had gotten into a particularly nasty brawl.

It was easy to slip out of the house and out onto the cracked sidewalk down the familiar path that led down the street, then between the Shears' and the Wilson's houses to another road that put me at my best friend's house. I figured he would be home by now since the movie he was going to see had started at one o'clock and it was nearly four.

It was well into fall, but still it was unnatural for it to be chilly. Usually the sweltering summer heat stuck around until well into October, but I was shivering because I was wearing denim shorts and a ratty t-shirt with our school mascot on it. It was extra ratty because it wasn't even my shirt. It was Darrel's from his high school football days, so it was at least six years old. When he gave it to me—or, really, when I'd taken it from the second drawer in his dresser one day after Two-Bit was horsing around and spilled beer all down the front of my tank top—it was already faded and the lettering was peeling off of it, but now there were holes in the armpits. I figured I would cut off the sleeves altogether soon.

The sun was out which made the cold bearable. My freckles were already beginning to fade though, which was good because then Steve and Soda would stop teasing me about being able to play connect the dots on my entire spot-covered face.

One time last summer I braided my hair into pigtails and Steve had gotten a real kick out of that. He started calling me Pippi Longstocking because of my bright red hair and my crazy freckles and pulling on each of them whenever he could. I learned my lesson real good then and went back to my regularly scheduled ponytail.

That ponytail was short now. I had cut it in the bathroom earlier using some kitchen scissors that morning and my head felt unnaturally light as I made my way down the dirt path.

I had made it through the shortcut between the houses and onto the next street when I ran smack into a leather jacket. This made me nearly jump out of my skin because I had been lost in my own thoughts and hadn't really been paying attention to where I was going. I walked this same trail nearly every day so my feet just took me there on instinct now.

I let out a kind of strangled yelp and jumped back, nearly dropping my backpack, which I had slung over one shoulder.

"You'd best watch where your going, Grease," a voice said from above me, kind of low and menacing.

But I wasn't scared, and my heart stopped beating out of control in my chest because I knew that voice. I knew that voice well.

"Dallas Winston," I said, grinning up at him. I hadn't seen him in three months, but he looked exactly the same—blonde hair, square jaw, and tough eyes that probably could turn a Soc to stone in just one look. He'd be in jail for a while for starting a knife fight in an alley near Buck Merrill's place. But being in the cooler had done him well, it seemed. Dally was the only one I know that could actually come out of prison looking even healthier than he did when he went in. And I've known a lot of guys who've gone to prison. A couple of girls too.

"Mattie." He nodded in my direction as a way of greeting and continued walking toward the Curtis house, to the same place I was headed. He lit up a cigarette and took a drag before he asked, "They ain't put you in the girls' home yet?"

He was joking around, but I didn't like when he joked about that. No way I was going into a girls' home. Sure, my home life wasn't great, but at least I could go where I want and do what I wanted. I was free. The girls' home would be prison.

"Never," I said and I gave him as much as an grin as I could muster, but he didn't notice really, because all of the sudden he had stopped in his tracks and cocked his head to one side like he was listening to something far away. I stopped too and watched him for a second.

"What is it?" I asked, but he held up his hand to shut me up.

I listened hard, but this time the noise he had heard was much louder. I could hear it without straining myself. It was someone shouting. A familiar voice that for a millisecond I couldn't place. Then it hit me.

 _Ponyboy._


	2. Chapter 2

_I listened hard, but this time the noise he had heard was much louder. I could hear it without straining myself. It was someone shouting. A familiar voice that for a millisecond I couldn't place. Then it hit me._ Ponyboy _._

We didn't need to say anything after that. We both turned automatically on our heels and ran in the direction of the noise. It was seconds later that I could hear running behind us. I didn't need to look to see who it was. I knew the heavy thuds of that ex-football player anywhere—Darrel had heard the shouts too. I could see three figures running towards us from the opposite direction down the road—Two-Bit, Soda, and Steve. We were all headed on a collision course to the same spot where the shouts were coming from—down a dirt alley off the main road in back of a row of houses.

I couldn't see Pony at first because there was a bunch of Socs standing over him. He had quit hollering, though. It wasn't until the gang starting pulling the guys off of him and chasing them back into their car that I could see him. I could tell Dallas was pretty eager to get back into action after so many months in jail because he was really punching the lights out of one of the guys and even after they pulled out in their fancy car, spewing dust and dirt every which way, he chased after them, chucking rocks and sticks and whatever he could find in their direction.

Pony was sitting up, so I knew he was all right, even though he was bleeding from somewhere on his head. He looked mighty spooked though. I couldn't go to him though because the truth was I thought I was about to cry. Just seeing him like that had freaked me out quite a bit. I mean, plenty of guys in our neighborhood get jumped and they get a lot more roughed up then he did. But I couldn't bear the idea of it being him.

He looked up and caught me staring at him from nearly a dozen feet away and we turned away from each other quickly. He didn't want me to see him crying and I sure as hell didn't want anyone to see me shed a tear. At least he had an excuse. I wasn't even the one jumped.

Darrel and Soda were hovering over him anyway, so I'd just have been in the way. Soda was being all comforting and Darrel was preparing his usual lecture. Darrel was always lecturing Ponyboy about something. It had been that way ever since Mr. and Mrs. Curtis died in a car wreck last year and Darrel was forced to be in charge of everything. So him and Pony were always getting into fights, which made me sad because they used to get along pretty well when their parents were alive.

"How bad is it?" Steve walked up to me and pointed at his face but he didn't need to. It was clear what he was referring to. His nose was bleeding quite a bit down his face so the Socs must've got at least a good punch in.

"Your face? Pretty ugly," I said, trying to be witty so he wouldn't notice my eyes were still kind of teary.

He glared at me in a way that I could tell he was really fuming.

I sighed. "It don't look broken. But I don't know. I ain't a doctor."

Sometimes the guys get ideas that I'm some kind of nurse because I've stitched a couple of them up after rough nights. I don't mind the sight of blood and sewing them up doesn't bother me any more than dissecting a fetal pig in biology, but my stitches are lousy and uneven.

Steve touched it gingerly and wiped the blood on the back of his wrist, then he huffed off towards the Curtis house.

Pony was standing and puffing on a cigarette, but he was still looking pretty pale. Darrel and Soda were beside him, like he might fall over when he started walking. Everyone was sort of shuffling toward the Curtis house. I followed behind them.

My backpack was still lying where I had dropped it. It was a miracle that it hadn't been lifted in the ten minutes I had left it there. Pretty much everything that was not nailed to the ground in this neighborhood got stolen in a matter of seconds. I guess Pony was looking for an excuse to stop getting his ear lectured off by his oldest brother, so when he got to it, he picked it up and sort of waited for me to catch up. Then we fell into step beside each other without saying a word.

When we got to the front of their house the wrath of Pony's oldest brother was waiting, though. But this time it was aimed at me.

"I thought you were going to the movies with him," Darrel said, his icy blue-gray eyes meeting mine. Sometimes he gets it in his head that because I'm around so much he can lecture me too. I usually just shrug him off or try to deflect his comments, but I could tell Pony could use a break from all of the lecturing, so I let Darrel say what he wanted.

"Well, I was supposed to meet him, but Clive was in a bad way this morning," I said. It was true too. Clive was stomping around downstairs and hollering at Mom for who knows what and I didn't want to risk trying to sneak past him in broad daylight while smoke was coming out of his nose like one of those raging bulls in cartoons.

"And you couldn't call and tell him that so he wouldn't walk all by his lonesome?" Darrel said.

"Come on, Darry. Lay off," Pony said. "You know they ain't got a phone no more."

I elbowed him as a way to shut him up so Darrel wouldn't turn on him again, but Darrel just sighed and turned back to the house. He had enough of our excuses for the day, I suppose.

The rest of the gang was still hovering around.

"You going to the game tomorrow night?" Two-Bit asked Soda and Steve.

"Yeah," Soda answered for the both of them.

"We want to go," Pony said, speaking for the both of us, which I didn't mind a bit because we pretty much go everywhere together because we've been best friends for nearly our whole lives—since we were in kindergarten or maybe even before that. So he knows that anywhere he goes I'm likely to tag along and vice-versa.

"We're taking the girls," Steve said. "No kids allowed."

Steve was always kind of nasty to us like that. He really didn't like us tagging along to stuff with him and Soda. Pony was fourteen though, and I nearly was too, so we weren't kids anymore, but Steve didn't think that.

Soda, just shrugged apologetically, but didn't try to defy Steve. I knew Pony worshiped the ground Soda walked on, but sometimes it made me mad when he didn't stand up to Steve and just let him bully us around like that. I didn't even know why Soda was such good friends with Steve anyway, except that they worked together at the DX station.

"I'm thinking about heading over to the drive-in to hunt some action. And little kids are allowed," Dallas said, grinning.

I nodded and Pony said, "Sure, we'll go with you."

Johnny was at our side, too, agreeing with a simple tilt of his head. Johnny was two years older than us—sixteen—the same age as Soda, but he looked a lot younger than that, so sometimes I think the gang forgot. Dallas was nineteen now, but he didn't mind us hanging around. I think he actually liked it when people were following him around.

"When did you get out of the cooler, Dal?" Johnny asked. Johnny had been so quiet that I'd barely even noticed he was there. He kind of hung back all silent all the time since he'd gotten jumped and beat up bad by a couple of Socs.

"This morning," he said. "Good behavior. Can you believe it?"

He was wearing his St. Christopher necklace again, which meant that him and Sylvia must've broken up.

When Pony asked him about it he said, "Broad was two-timing me while I was in jail."

Maybe it was just the sun in his eyes, but he actually looked upset. Sometimes it's hard to believe that Dally could feel anything anymore.

Then he looked at me as if he could tell that I was analyzing him. "Hey, you got my knife, Matt?"

Before Dallas had been arrested last time he'd given me his knife for safekeeping. If the cops found it on him they would have confiscated it for sure. And Dallas said now that I was getting older, I might find a knife useful in certain situations. I didn't even want to think about what he meant by that.

I pulled the knife out of my back pocket, where it had lived for the past three months and handed it to him. He flicked out the blade, like the true professional Greaser he was, and grinned.

I was reluctant to give it up. Even though I never had to use it and I never really thought I ever would have to use it, it had made me feel safe. Like no matter what kind of rage Clive was in I would be okay even though I would never have the guts to use it on him.

Maybe Dallas saw my hesitation because he said, "One of these days we'll have to get you a blade of your own."

That's when Two-Bit slung his arm around my neck, nearly bowling me over in the process. I could tell by how rough he was that he'd already had a couple of drinks. "Heck, maybe I'll lift one for you for your birthday."

My birthday was the next day, but I was sure Two-Bit would have no trouble stealing a switchblade in that time. He was always up for a challenge. But chances are he would drink a little too much tonight and forget. I didn't tell him that, though, instead I just nodded.

Two-Bit didn't see my response because he had already leapt into his beat up Chevy and was looking for a push start. Johnny, Dallas, and Pony obliged and then Dallas was on his way down the road looking for some kind of trouble, I'm sure. I imagined he'd done a lot of scheming while he was in jail.

"You all right, Johnny?" Pony asked. "Want to come in?"

Johnny shook his head. "Nah, man. I think I'll stay in the lot tonight."

"Okay, but if you get cold, just come on over to our house," Pony said. Then he started making his way up the steps, knowing that I would follow.

Johnny was outside of the front gate and I was halfway in the Curtis' front door when he called back to me. "Oh, Matt," he said suddenly remembering something. "Dally said he saw your old man down at the bar. He said he was on the rampage. Lost a bet or something." With the late afternoon sun hitting his face crookedly, that wicked white scar, the one he had from getting jumped, stood out on his face.

Johnny and I were pretty good buddies. We weren't as close as him and Pony were, but we looked out for each other since we both came from homes where our parents didn't give a hang about us and would scream at us as soon as look at us. Johnny's dad was pretty rough on him physically too though. He smacked him around a bit sometimes. The worst Clive ever did to me was grab my arm and pull me back in the house that one night last year when he caught me half out of my bedroom window trying to sneak away. His fingers had dug into me real good and left a bruise, but nothing too bad. I didn't tell anyone that. Not even Pony. I didn't want him to worry since he worried about a lot of things these days.

"Thanks, John. Maybe I'll come meet you in the lot later then," I said. I didn't like sleeping in the abandoned lot too much, but it wouldn't be so bad if Johnny was there. It was best to stay clear of the house if Clive had lost money at the poker table. He could be pretty scary, I had to admit.

Then he was off, half jogging across the pot-holed street and around the corner in the direction of the lot.

* * *

A/N: Thank to to everyone who read! It's really exciting to be back on this site again after almost a decade away. Y'all are amazing!


	3. Chapter 3

When I got into the house, Soda was already sprawled on the couch watching TV. Something pretty funny too, judging by the way he was grinning. Darrel was starting dinner. I could hear the loud clang of a pot hitting the stovetop and the refrigerator slamming shut. He could be pretty rough on stuff.

He stuck his head out into the doorway as soon as he heard the door slam behind me.

"Pony, have you started your homework?" he asked. He really couldn't lay off him for a single second.

"We've got all weekend," I said before Ponyboy could respond. I really didn't want them to get into it.

"That don't mean you shouldn't start your homework," he said. "You especially, Mattie Anne, seeing as how you nearly failed math last quarter."

I glared at the back of Pony's head. I could see his neck get splotchy and red because he knew he was in big trouble with me. The only way Darrel could know that I got a D in algebra is if he let it slip.

"That's not because I didn't do my homework. That's because Mrs. Lewis is a miserable cow who hates me," I said.

"It's because you didn't do your homework," Darrel said flatly.

Of course, he was right. I didn't do my homework because I was lousy at math even when Pony tried to walk me through the problems over and over again, so I sort of gave up. "And don't you start getting mouthy." He pointed at me then looked at Pony as if to say, 'Don't you go getting any ideas from her.'

The rest of the gang was busy getting wasted at rodeos and starting knife fights and landing in jail and Darrel was worried about my bad influence.

"Mattie, you make a better door than a window," Soda said. I was standing between him and the TV. "And lay of 'em, Darry. They'll start their homework tomorrow morning. Won't you?"

We both nodded. Soda hadn't even taken his eyes off the screen. He could intercept arguments in his sleep by now and settle them pretty quick usually.

"All right," Darrel agreed reluctantly. "But put a Band-Aid on that cut."

He always had to get the last word in.

"He can't stand me," Pony hissed when we got into the bedroom and I plopped down into the desk chair, dropping my backpack to the floor with a thud. He sat down at the foot of the bed and put his head in his hands. He must've felt how mussed up his hair was then because then he went about trying to smooth it down again.

"He really can't," I joked, but Pony wasn't in a joking mood. No one could take a joke today. He gave me a half frown and looked so exhausted and pitiful that I moved from my spot at the desk in the corner to sit beside him instead. I threw my arm around his shoulder and pulled his right temple to rest against my left. This was kind of a thing we sometimes did, putting our heads together as if to meld our brains, if one of us was in bad shape. Before Mr. and Mrs. Curtis died it was usually him that would have to put his arm around me if Clive had kicked me out of the house for being too mouthy or I'd gotten teased by the girls at school. These things still happened to me all the time, but since Pony's parents died and Darrel started getting rough on him I guess I hadn't had the heart to complain about the shit that happened to me.

We sort of sat there for a while in his and Soda's dusty bedroom. The room was actually surprising clean for a boy's room. The bed was made and there were no dirty clothes on the floor and Pony's books were nicely arranged on the bookshelf. Darrel made them keep it pretty neat, but no one had bothered to wipe the dust from the dresser or the shelf in months.

It was getting dark—the sun was sinking down behind the houses and the trees. The remaining sunlight came in through the slats of the blinds, but soon it would be pitch black. We stayed there, though, not saying anything.

Pony's breathing evened out and his shoulders relaxed a bit under my arm. He was so quiet that he could have been sleeping, but I knew he wasn't. I knew he was thinking. But I didn't know what he was thinking about. Sometimes, I wished he talked more to me about things. He thought and thought so much but then he shut up real good. Sometimes late at night when he was really tired and his defenses were down he'd talk about his parents and about how sad he was about Soda being a dropout and how he was sick of Darrel nagging him all the time.

We were startled out of this calm stupor by Darrel pushing open the bedroom door and sticking his head in. I nearly jumped out of my skin because I'd been off in my own little world.

Darrel surveyed us suspiciously for a moment before asking, "Are you hungry, Mattie Anne?"

My heart was still beating itself out of my chest from being so startled but I nodded. "Yeah, a bit."

The truth was, I was starving. I used to not eat much at all really. Even after Pony and I would go running I would hardly eat at all. But these days, it seemed I couldn't get enough food. On top of that, I had only had breakfast this morning.

"Good, I made extra for you," Darrel said. The Curtis' always make extra for me because more nights than not I end up eating at their house. Darrel turned to go, but then he thought better of it and came back to push the door open as far as it would open. "Pony, put a Band-Aid on that cut," he said, but then he hesitated before saying the next bit. "And leave this door open from now on."

I knew, but I didn't want to, exactly what he was implying by that.

As soon as Darrel was out of earshot and back in the kitchen I turned to look at Pony who's ears were flaming red. I don't know what was funnier, Darrel's concern or Pony's utter embarrassment, but it was real funny to me. So I started cracking up. I tried to be as quiet as possible, but it was difficult really. I guess I needed a laugh after so stressful of a day.

Pony didn't say a thing, but when I lifted my face out of my hands and looked directly at him, he actually started to laugh too.

I was afraid to stop laughing because when I did, I knew it would be strange between us in a way it never had been before. At least for a moment, but maybe, I worried, forever.

That night after dinner Pony and I read in the living room. We read out loud to each other, switching off every five pages or so. Some nights we read our own separate books while sitting next to each other on the couch, but usually we read out loud sitting on the worn carpeted floor of the front room with our backs pressed together so that whenever he read, I could feel the vibrations of his voice in my spine. It was comforting, I guess, that feeling. And, it was easier to read too when you didn't have someone looking at you. But we now just did it out of habit more than anything because that's the way we'd read Dr. Seuss books out loud when we were kids.

We were reading _The Lord of the Rings_ , which was our biggest endeavor yet. We'd been reading it for about two weeks already and we had only just finished the first book.

Soda had put the TV on mute, but he wasn't watching it. He liked to listen in. We only knew he was listening to the story at all because sometimes he would laugh out loud if Gandalf said something particularly witty or sometimes he would ask questions about hobbits, since he'd missed the first chapter of the book. Darrel on the other hand wasn't listening a bit. He was sitting in his chair, reading the paper with his usual stern look as if it was full of rotten news. He had become used to blocking out our reading over the years. Darrel didn't have much use for books. He preferred to stay firmly rooted in the real world.

"Do you think it will get better with me and Darry?" Pony asked me that night. It was late. We had read for a while, but for the last hour we had just been kind of talking and thinking. Soda and Darrel had gone to bed already because they'd both had to work real early in the morning that day and were tired. Outside, the wind was picking up. I could hear it rustling the leaves on the trees and the wind chimes from the house next door.

We were each cross-legged on the floor now, facing each other and Pony was pulling at the fuzz of the carpet.

"I think so," I said. And I meant it too. These past nine months had been harder on Darry than on anyone else really because he'd had so much responsibility put on him. Before he was just this star athlete who had the chance to go to college on scholarship. But after the accident he had to give all that up because he had to take care of his brothers. "He's just learning how to do right by you and Soda both, that's all. And you're learning how to do right by him."

Pony looked up at me then with a little crooked smile. I felt the sudden urge to throw my arms around him, but of course I didn't. If I had known what was going to happen, though, I would have.

"I'm going to bed," he finally said. "You gonna go home?"

"Best not," I said.

"You wanna stay here tonight?" Pony asked. "I hear the couch is pretty comfy."

He was wise cracking then because I was the one that slept on the Curtis couch the most out of anybody. I knew very well how lumpy their old couch was.

"I'll take a slab of concrete over that sofa," I said, standing up and offering a hand to help him to his feet. Sometimes we sit so long like that our muscles get stuck. Pony took my hand and when he got to his feet he stretched his arms into the air, which caused his shirt to go up too, and revealed his pale belly.

"Suit yourself," he said. "Say hi to Johnny for me."

"We'll meet you and Dally tomorrow before the movie," I said.

"No, come by for breakfast," he said, and he tried to hide a smile. I could tell, though.

"What did you get me?" I asked, excitedly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, playing dumb.

"It better be the best birthday gift ever or we can no longer be best friends," I said.

"I'm pretty sure you've told me that for the last ten years."

"Well then you've done a good job so far," I said.

It was true that Pony got me the best gifts for my birthday. Some years, he was the only one to get me anything. Last year, he got his parents to drive us to the country to a place we could ride horses. Soda came too. The year before he got me a new notebook because I like to write little stories sometimes, just for kicks. It was one of the fancy ones bound in leather that you see college students carrying around sometimes. And he got me a set of fancy pens like a real writer.

I had no idea what he got me this year.

"It's only an hour away from my birthday. You could just give me whatever it is now," I said. I'd tried this move in years before but it never worked. This year though, he got a look in his eye that I couldn't recognize and he gave a little nod.

"Really?" I asked.

"Only part of your gift," he said. "Hold on one sec. I'll meet you on the front porch."

He disappeared into his bedroom quietly as not to wake Sodapop. I grabbed my backpack and went out to the porch, sitting on the step and waiting impatiently. It seemed like forever until he opened the screen door and sat down next to me. But when he did he handed me…we'll I wasn't sure what it was but it had a big purple bow stuck to it. I took the bow off and then held the present it my hand.

"It's a walkie-talkie," Pony said. "A radio. Just turn it on." He reached over and twisted a knob at the top. "Then press the button here on the side. And talk."

I eyed him wondering if this was some weird joke. He didn't look like he was joking. He was just watching me and waiting for me to talk into the radio.

I pushed the side button and said, "Ponyboy has hairy hobbit feet."

On the other side of him, my voice echoed and he held up a matching radio as if to say 'see?'

Then he held it in his palm, pushed the button and replied, "Mattie has pointy elf ears."

"I do not," I said bumping my shoulder into his.

He laughed quietly. "It's so we can talk," he said. "Since you don't have a phone anymore. They'll work as far as your house and the lot. Soda and I tested them. They were Dad's. We found them in the garage a month ago and cleaned them up."

"And Darrel was okay with you giving one to me?" I asked.

"He said it was a good idea. You know…so we could always know that you're okay," he said.

 _And I can always know that you're okay._ I thought, but I didn't say that because, to be honest, I felt like crying. The gang had always looked out for me, but the Curtis', they were the closest thing I had to family.

It seemed we were the only ones in the world right then. The night was strangely quiet except for the wind. Pony and I stayed silent for a long time and watched the leaves rolling across the pavement under the flickering streetlamp.

After a while he yawned and then I did too.

"I'd better go then," I said, standing up, still firmly grasping the walkie-talkie in my right hand.

"You're sure you don't want to stay," Pony asked quietly. "It's mighty cold out."

I shook my head. "Thanks, though." Then, without looking back at him, I went out the front gate and crossed the street at a half run. It wasn't until I made it to the corner that the radio crackled to life again.

"Goodnight, Mattie," he said.

"Goodnight, Ponyboy Curtis."

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading, y'all! This is an awesome community that I'm so happy to be a part of again!


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